Gremlins

And the interesting poetry challenge that spawned this particular poem.

Gremlins

Gremlins - hidden ghosts in the machine,
Mischievous gremlins wiping data clean,
Of the gremlins, all must beware,
There’s no deeds gremlins won’t dare,
Circuits, wires, code are gremlins’ playbin,
When light’s flicker - blame a gremlin.

At work, we have a Friday lunchtime poetry club. A mix of people from different companies within the building come together for creativity and connection. We usually start with some expressive free-writing, then there’s a prompt or a particular poetic form to have a go at.

This week’s challenge:

• a six line poem with six words in each line

• the first word of the first line must then feature as the second word in the second line, the third in the third line and so on until it becomes the last word in the last line

• the repeated word must be exactly the same - no changing tense or number. Yes - I am aware that I broke this rule at the end of my poem - it was a deliberate choice for creative effect!

It was a surprisingly tricky challenge and certainly stretched the braincells. Within the group there was a variety of forms - from my own rhyming couplets to stream of consciousness with use of enjambment to overcome the strict constraints on word placement - and an unusual mix of words chosen - from eggs to Coco-Loco! Deciding on that first word was definitely the hardest part as once you did, you were committed to making it work throughout.

If you like playing around with words, why not give it a go?

And if you do, I’d love to hear what you come up with: